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My philosophy of education

 

 

"The only source of knowledge is experience." - Albert Einstein
 
I've always believed that education should be more than worksheets, more than tests, and more than lectures. Education should be work, but it shouldn't feel like it. Education should be fostering our innate curiosity and unleashing its potential. Education should develop real-world skills, yet create life-long learners. 
In my two years with Southeast Island School District, I've sought to connect students lives to their curriculum through relevant projects and place-based learning. Some of my favorite units and projects include developing a student-run newspaper (high / middle school), creating a thrift store as a community service project (high school), designing a tomato and pepper start business to teach money concepts (K-1st grade), building a wind turbine power plant (middle / high school), and managing an industrial-scale aquaponic greenhouse and chicken coop (all grades).
I believe that all of our students, K-12, deserve high quality outdoor, place-based, and project-based learning. I also believe in the value of agriculture education and over the past two years I have worked to link curriculum to SISD's innovative school farm programs. 
 
For the UAS MAT degree, I have collected some of core beliefs about teaching into an essay I call "The Gift." It is the best summary of my teaching philosophy. Read it here. 
In the following paper for my Experiential Education degree, I describe what I believe to be the critical components of an ideal education system, an experiential model that realizes "experience" must be carefully defined. Read it here.
 
 
Above (right): Coffman Cove students in our aquaponic greenhouse; above (left): students K-12 work with community members to obtain bedding for our school farm animals; right: a student in the chicken coop.
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